AUGIWorld Magazine - March/April 2008 - (Page 14) AutoCAD Architecture Project Navigator Explores Alternate Design Solutions Have you ever started a design and then continuously used the ‘Save As’ command so that a “slightly different” scheme could be explored? Or do you use the copy command to duplicate the scheme “off to the side?” During my stint as a CAD manager (and now as an educator) I often see a variety of “creative techniques” used to brainstorm various design ideas within AutoCAD® and AutoCAD® Architecture. I’ve seen the trace paper technique where the drawing screen is continuously panned to the right or left to explore multiple design alternatives. I’ve also seen the age-old Save As trick where the designer doesn’t really think about his/her file-naming strategy. This article describes how AutoCAD Architecture’s Project Navigator can be used during this design stage to continuously explore design alternatives within a project. This technique uses: • Divisions and Views to set up and organize the schemes and scheme alternatives for viewing and printing. • Constructs to create and separate major design schemes. • Elements to explore smaller design alternatives such as furniture and interior partition alternatives within a scheme. ganizational strategy for managing all the digital files related to a project. Using a multi-drawing strategy, a project is usually separated into multiple .dwg files to keep file sizes small. AutoCAD Architecture models much of its project organization procedures and concepts after this conventional and well-established process. It is designed to help organize a design project and its many drawing files. Within the AutoCAD Architecture environment, the Project Navigator helps you to quickly find, open, and link these files. AutoCAD Architecture sets up a fourcategory system of drawing file types— each category type having a distinct role in the project organization process. These categories of drawings include: drawings that are used to build the virtual model; drawings used to view critical plans, sections, and elevations of the virtual model; and drawings that are used to plot views of the model. AutoCAD Architecture then automates the file-linking operations between these category types. Figure 1 illustrates this concept. Divisions make great organizers A quick review of Project Navigator’s functions 14 Project organization refers to your or- Figure 1 Divisions are good for organizing the construct drawings and setting up the views of the alternative schemes to be plotted. The conventional use of Divisions in AutoCAD Architecture is to divide a building or large facility into several building wings or into one or more construction phases. Divisions, like Levels, are not .dwg files and do not hold any information in them. Divisions, in this technique, will be used to organize the Construct drawings. First, create a Division for each major scheme. Since I do this at the beginning of a project when I typically do not know the amount of schemes I will end up with, I typically create between five and ten Diviw w w. A U G I . c o m http://www.augi.com
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